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Protect Our Care is a left-of-center healthcare advocacy organization created to lobby for the preservation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (better known as “Obamacare”). Protect Our Care’s executive director is Brad Woodhouse, a prominent Democratic Party operative and political activist who previously served as president of American Bridge 21st Century and Americans United for Change (AUFC). Protect Our Care has described itself as a “dedicated war room for the ACA” (Obamacare). [1]

Protect Our Care is a project of the 501(c)(4) advocacy group and incubator Sixteen Thirty Fund, which manages a number of single-issue advocacy front groups.[2] Critics have characterized Sixteen Thirty Fund as a “darker-than-dark money” organization targeting Republican political candidates.[3]

Background

Protect Our Care was originally created as a political campaign against Republican politicians it accused of trying to dismantle Medicare.[4] Protect Our Care is also involved in lobbying efforts to prevent the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

To this end Protect Our Care shares at least one prominent officer in common with the original campaign to pass Obamacare in 2010. The campaign’s executive director, Brad Woodhouse, worked on the steering committee for a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), when Obamacare was passed in 2010.[5]

Protect Our Care is a project of the 501(c)(4) advocacy group and incubator Sixteen Thirty Fund, which manages a number of single-issue advocacy front groups.[6] Sixteen Thirty Fund also manages a similar front group, Health Care Voter, of which Woodhouse is a co-chair.

Political Activities

As Republican members of Congress attempted to “repeal and replace” Obamacare after the 2016 elections, Protect Our Care worked with other groups such as Indivisible to campaign against the initiative. Many of the initiatives included individuals with preexisting conditions, such as types of cancer, to justify the continuation of Obamacare and campaign against GOP candidates during the 2018 midterm elections.[7]

Leslie Dach

Leslie Dach is the campaign chair and former executive director of Protect Our Care. Dach was noted for bringing the “Never Trump” former Reagan administration speechwriter Doug Elmets to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[14] Before working at Protect Our Care, Dach was an executive vice president for Walmart and a senior advisor for both the Rockefeller Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.[15] After the election, Dach was a senior advisor for Co-Impact. Dach had experience with Obamacare as a senior counselor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was in charge of initially implementing the law.

Lori Lodes

Lori Lodes is campaign manager for Protect Our Care. Lodes previously served as chief of staff for communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Prior to that, Lodes was communications director for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration; she has also served as senior vice president for the Center for American Progress (CAP), senior vice president for campaigns and strategy for CAP Action, and deputy communications director for the Service Employees Union International (SEIU). Lodes is also a co-founder of another pro-Obamacare organization, Get America Covered, which focuses on enrolling individuals into Obamacare.[16]

Adam Hoyer

Adam Hoyer is the organizing director for Protect Our Care and has also previously worked for Brad Woodhouse as national field director for Americans United for Change. Hoyer has worked as director of field campaigns for Smoot Tewes Group (STG), a Democratic Party consultancy headquartered in Washington, D.C.[17] Previously Hoyer was a regional field director for Obama during the 2008 presidential election and later worked in both the U.S. Department of Commerce as well as a confidential assistant in the Obama White House.[18]

Anne Shoup

Anne Shoup serves as the communications director for Protect Our Care and previously worked at the consultancy New Paradigm Strategy Group. Shoup worked on healthcare issues for both the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP). [20] While working at American Bridge 21st Century, Shoup was national director of the Bridge Project, a program designed to challenge conservative policies created after the success of the Tea Party during the 2010 midterm elections. [21]

Funding

Protect Our Care is a project of the left-of-center 501(c)(4) funding and fiscal sponsorship group Sixteen Thirty Fund. While it is unspecified how much money the Sixteen Thirty Fund spends on the program, the nonprofit organization earned over $21 million in revenue in 2016.[22]